Golden, a medical doctor, was a VP of medical affairs/chief
quality officer at Dameron Hospital from 2008-2012. Golden was also the majority shareholder of
the California Hospitalist Physicians, Inc. (CHP), a medical corporation
providing primary care medical services, which contracted with Dameron to
provide services from 2009-2012, at which point Dameron chose Sound Inpatient
as the new hospitalist group for Dameron.Golden had entered into agreements with several doctors to provide
hospitalist services for their patients, competing with Sound Inpatient.

Golden posted a list in the emergency room of doctors who
designated her as the hospitalist for their patients. But Sound Inpatient sent letters to providers
saying Golden did not practice at Dameron anymore; sent a nurse to visit
offices of providers stating Golden was not practicing at Dameron anymore; and told
employees to inform Dameron emergency room staff not to check anymore whether Golden
was designated as hospitalist for patients, because all those patients were now
assigned to Sound Inpatient.

Golden sued for violation of the California consumer protection
laws.She had standing to sue because she
alleged that she lost money as a result of patients not seeking her services
anymore.

Under Cal. Bus & Prof. Code § 17500, it’s “unlawful for
any person [or] corporation … with intent directly or indirectly to dispose of
real or personal property or to perform services … or to induce the public to
enter into any obligation relating thereto, to make or disseminate … any
statement, concerning that real or personal property or those services … which
is untrue or misleading, and which is known, or which by the exercise of
reasonable care should be known, to be untrue or misleading.” However, a close reading of the statute
convinced the court that the statements had to be made in “advertising,” which
these statements were not.The relevant
language from Section 17500 refers to false statements disseminated: “in any
newspaper or other publication, or any advertising device, or by public outcry
or proclamation, or in any other manner or means whatever, including over the
Internet.” The all-inclusive language of “any other manner or means whatever”
could include letters, a nurse’s statements to providers, and instructions to
employees not to check whether Golden had been designated as the hospitalist. But
section 17500 as a whole clearly referred to advertising, and there was a “common
sense” difference between the communications at issue here and advertising. If
Golden could sue here, “nearly any false statement connected with the sale of a
product/service constitutes false advertising.”(Which would be a problem because …)

The language of the statute clearly referred to harm to the
public, and Golden didn’t show that the public was induced or that a false
advertisement was disseminated to the public. Instead, Sound Inpatient
allegedly targeted individual providers and employees.“[T]hese sporadic, infrequent means were not
directed at the public for purposes of section 17500.”Moreover, the complaint didn’t allege how
consumers such as patients were deceived or harmed, just that medical providers
and staff were the recipients of false statements.(If they didn’t get the hospitalist they’d
chosen, why isn’t that harm?)

Section 17200 prohibits “any unlawful, unfair or fraudulent
business act.” “Unlawful” borrows
violations of other laws, and without a 17500 predicate claim, there was
nothing there.As for “fraudulent,” that
requires actual and justifiable reliance, and Golden didn’t allege that she
relied on Sound Inpatient’s false statements.Nor did most of the facts alleged amount to “unfair” conduct, which
requires “an incipient violation of an antitrust law, or that violates the
policy or spirit of [such] laws because its effects are comparable to a
violation of the law, or that otherwise significantly threatens or harms
competition.”

However, alleged false statements that Golden wasn’t practicing at Dameron
anymore nudged the complaint based on 17200 past the threshold of plausibility.Repeatedly making such false statements
with the aim of drawing patients away from Golden stated a claim for unfair
competition.